Redding chamber backs 3rd council candidate

The high-stakes contest for a new Redding City Council majority is balanced now, slate for slate.

The Greater Redding Chamber of Commerce has backed staunch fiscal conservative Gary Cadd as its third candidate for the three seats up for grabs Nov. 2.

With this endorsement, the chamber has created its own triad of generously financed candidates to oppose a trio of challengers generously underwritten by powerful public safety unions.

The 68-year-old Cadd is closely aligned with the Redding Tea Party Patriots.

He's a retired oil field technician and former legislative aide from Alaska who has attended all but one council meeting since early 2007.

Cadd ran for council in 2008 as a no-frills small government conservative. He won an endorsement from political mentor Patrick Jones but no backing from the city's business groups, which skipped endorsements that year.

Now Cadd, armed with a $5,000 infusion from the chamber as the campaign winds down, leaps from a field of five independent challengers to join incumbents Jones and Rick Bosetti as a big-money candidate with a powerful sponsorship. The chamber endorsed Bosetti and Jones in March.

Cadd said he's happy the chamber decided to back a third candidate and excited the 1,000-member business group chose him. The cash will help him get his message out during the campaign's final days, he said.

"As I've been saying, this is a defining moment in the history of the city of Redding," Cadd said Wednesday. "We need to make changes in employee benefits. We need to get the city's budget back in strong territory. We are really close to having a problem right now."

The election has become a referendum on the hard-line stance of Bosetti and Jones, who have rejected public safety union concessions that would have saved the city $2 million during the coming year. The council majority has been willing to risk police and fire layoffs rather than extend public safety contracts a year. The city needs to negotiate new, less-expensive contracts as quickly as possible, Bosetti and Jones have said.

Union-backed challengers Ken Murray, Sandra Speer and Francie Sullivan have all said the city needs to reign in labor costs.

But they have criticized the council majority's hard-line stance as unproductive political posturing.

Cadd would likely join Bosetti, Jones and Missy McArthur in insisting city employees begin paying more of their health insurance premiums and a portion of their pension costs while accepting less generous pension formulas.

Cadd, confident of his chances for winning a seat, said he would also urge his fellow council members to adopt zero-budgeting.

Departments would be required to start their budgets from scratch and go through them line-by-line rather than carrying over figures from prior budgets, Cadd said.

"Then you can make some substantive cuts, and you know exactly what you're cutting," Cadd said.

Cadd hopes to persuade the city to sell some of its surplus property and use the proceeds to repay two Redevelopment Agency loans to the Redding Electric Utility. Those 40-year-old loans financed downtown parking garages and stand at $1.12 million today.

Even if he's not elected in November, Cadd said, he plans to pursue his dormant campaign to make the city clerk a purely elected position much like the county clerk.

The chamber invited all eight City Council challengers to answer a questionnaire and submit to an interview for the endorsement and cash backing.

On the questionnaire, candidates were asked, "Do you agree that there is a pension crisis, and what actions, if any, would you take if elected?" Candidates also were asked how many council meetings they've attended, their plans for addressing the city's budget shortfall, what they're "prepared to propose in support of the business community" and whether they support Stillwater Business Park.

Greg Balkovek, chamber board chairman, said the organization's political action committee concentrated on three candidates before choosing Cadd. He described the committee's recommendation of Cadd to the chamber board as "very strong."

"I don't think there was a candidate we talked to that wasn't concerned about public safety," Balkovek said. "But they look at it through a different set of glasses.

"Whoever is elected is going to sit down with the city manager and our labor partners, look realistically at the years ahead, roll up their sleeves and make some changes so we're not outspending the money that's coming in," Balkovek said.